a scientist with a chronic case of cinéphilia

Tag: elizabeth banks

A mere fifteen minutes into this generic reboot of “Charlie’s Angels,” I could not help but wish for the screenplay by Elizabeth Banks to drop the constant, in-your-face, obnoxious, try-hard, and superficial “female empowerment” message and just tell a good story with characters worth rooting for. It is embarrassing that the writing is reduced to a chronic case of ass-licking—for the lack of a better term—of the female gender instead of simply attempting to appeal to all viewers regardless of sex. This trend of “elevating” women by putting down males in the movies is getting old, especially ineffective when the strategy is as subtle as swinging a mallet to the testicles.

It is a shame because I enjoyed the casting of the Angels: Ella Balinska as Jane, the badass former MI-6 agent who copes by compartmentalizing, Kristen Stewart as Sabina, the goofy and sarcastic spice, and Naomi Scott as Elena, the engineer thrusted into the world of international espionage following her decision to become a whistleblower against the shady tech company she works for (Sam Claflin). All three actors bring something fresh and exciting to the table, particularly Balinska who is quite convincing in wearing the physicality that the role demands—a feat because experienced Stewart is capable of simply standing in one spot while doing nothing yet standing out like the star that she is.

Banks also directed the film, but the work fails to rise above its contemporaries. In fact, the approach, it appears, is to blend into them as to be forgotten completely. Pick any action sequence, for instance, and notice how it evokes the feeling of a music video: choppy, the sound tending to overwhelm the images, luxury over believability. While the movie is meant to be escapist, it does not mean that realism must be thrown out altogether. Otherwise, how would we come to believe the more dramatic turns?

Speaking of turns, there are numerous ludicrous twists that fail to make sense, from character motivations (especially the villains), head-scratching plot devices, to how one can so suddenly escape from what appears to be certain death. Eventually, we are trained not to trust what is unfolding on screen because we suspect a twist to occur at any given moment anyway. In other words, the reboot makes the elementary mistake of choosing immediate gratification over inspiring us invest into this familiar world with new characters. It seems that there is a lack of careful thought put into the project; this is a prime example of reliance on branding.

Had the writer-director been more ambitious and thoughtful about the story she wished to tell, “Charlie’s Angels” could have appealed to a whole new generation. The star power is there. Even the inimitable Sir Patrick Stewart graces the screen. And one or two of the extended chases—the sequence in Hamburg is a standout—aren’t half-bad. While a next installment is inevitable, it would be interesting to see a different filmmaker at the helm, one whose goal is to make a solid and memorable action movie first and foremost—with or without substantive social commentary.

The question of what might have happened had Superman grown up evil instead of good is not at all new, but “Brightburn,” written for the screen by Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn, had the opportunity to burst the door open for the superhero horror sub-genre with an exclamation point. Instead, the picture is, for the most part, dramatically inert, choosing shock over suspense, violence instead of creeping terror. I felt the actors—every single one clearly capable of so much more than what the reductive screenplay offers—longing for deeper, more challenging material. Over time, I grew disinterested in its lifeless parade of villainous young Clark Kent.

Top-tier superhero films command a sense of wonder. It does not matter whether one’s power is innate, transferred, or achieved through creativity, technology, and hard work, superhero movies that successfully capture viewers’ imagination treat as though the powers in their respective stories are new, wonderful, potentially scary and dangerous, eye-opening.

In this project, notice, for instance, there is a flatness in tone and mood as twelve-year-old Brandon Breyer (Jackson A. Dunn) discovers his super-strength and indestructibility. He need not be overtly thrilled given his laid back personality, but a more intelligent screenplay would have found ways to communicate his delight, alarm, or confusion—perhaps a mix of all three—for being a special freak. Brandon, after all, despite his extraterrestrial origin, is raised by human parents (Elizabeth Banks, David Denman) and so, naturally, he must respond in human ways. Otherwise, we fail to relate to his muted reactions.

Conflicts surrounding Brandon lack depth. At school, he is made fun for being too smart, too quiet, too different. The script does not bother to introduce any of Brandon’s peers (or teachers) in a meaningful way, whether the supporter character becomes a friend or foe. Without the requisite context surrounding Brandon’s challenges outside his home, the individuals he interacts with simply exist as as sheep lining up for the slaughter. It is without question that the writers are not interested in the interactions between social and abnormal psychology within the conditions of a superhero flick. Scenes at school should be highly informative given there is no other pre-teen Brandon can socialize with at the Breyer farm.

Like forgettable horror movies, it appears as though “Brightburn” is more interested in how to make violence and mangled body parts appear beautiful or realistic. Sure, pulling a sharp object from one’s eyeball, for instance, makes the audience wince but that is all there is to it once the scene is over. Slasher elements do not work here because little effort is spent on the chase or tease. There is minimal patience from behind the camera; it moves so quickly and so often as if self-conscious that viewers would notice less-than-perfect images. It does not help either that the score is relentless in signaling audiences how to feel. Clearly, it does not understand the difference between an evanescent jump scare and horror that lingers.

On President Obama’s birthday, the Barden Bellas, three-time a cappella champions, were invited to perform at the Lincoln Center. The performance goes swimmingly—at least initially—until Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) is shown suspended on a white sheet à la P!nk at the 2010 Grammys. Wearing no underwear, Fat Amy inadvertently flashes the world and the images spread like wildfire. The Barden Bellas’ once excellent reputation is tarnished and the university’s dean is forced to make a drastic decision.

Directed by Elizabeth Banks, “Pitch Perfect 2” matches the novelty and verve of its predecessor at times, but it does drag in parts. As it should be, the film is at the top of its game when characters are performing mashups of mainstream songs both new and old. However, in order to appeal emotionally to the audience, the script tries to explore friendships and relationships which often come across as tired and forced.

There are a few smart choices here. Beca (Anna Kendrick) is now a senior and she is making preparations when it comes to what she wants to do next after graduation. She hopes to become a record producer and so she divides her time between the a cappella group and interning with a music producer with a sharp tongue (Keegan-Michael Key). The scenes that take place in the conference room and the studio are entertaining and amusing. We believe that Beca is ready to start a new chapter, not simply sitting through a series of scenes where the character realizes eventually that she loves being a Barden Bella more than a chance at a real future. Always be on the lookout for cameos.

Less interesting is the love interest between Fat Amy and Bumper Allen (Adam DeVine), a former Treblemaker who used to work for John Mayer. I missed Bumper Allen’s sassiness; they try to make him a nice guy here which makes him almost boring. Although Wilson and DeVine do try to give it their best shot, especially when it comes to the range of facial expressions they possess, I never felt like there was anything at stake. Even if they do not end up together in the end, it still feels all right. Thus, the couple’s scenes are trivial for the most part, about twenty minutes of padding that fails to push the story forward.

Perhaps the best part of the film is when the Barden Bellas participate in an underground rif-off against other a cappella groups. It is creative, funny, and we get a real sense of the styles, strengths, and weaknesses of each group. This is stronger than the finale—the latter satisfying but not particularly impressive. The last performance relies too much on sentimentality than presentation and talent. The main rival of the Barden Bellas in this film, Das Sound Machine (Flula Borg, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen), commands such a presence that cuteness and sweetness simply fail to measure up.

“Pitch Perfect 2” offers a good time and is best seen with a group of people. It might have been better if there had been less talking and more singing, but actors like Kendrick and Wilson possess such an effervescent, effortless charm that they could be selling me something that I don’t need yet I’ll still listen to them speak.

It is the last day of Camp Firewood which means that the camp director, Beth (Janeane Garofalo), and her camp counselors must endure one more day of trying to overcome their feelings for one another. Geeky Coop (Michael Showalter) is finally noticed by salacious Katie (Marguerite Moreau). The only problem is she’s still seeing scatter-brained Andy (Paul Rudd), currently eyeing blonde Lindsay (Elizabeth Banks) like a hawk.

Meanwhile, Victor (Ken Marino), known as the stallion of the bunch, looks forward to having sex with sexually unrestrained Abby (Marisa Ryan). Incidentally, he is forced by Beth to take some of the kids to go water rafting, which is a couple of hours away from camp. Beth, too, is attracted to someone, an astrophysicist named Henry (David Hyde Pierce) who later volunteers to entertain the “indoor kids” to impress her.

Written by Michael Showalter and David Wain, “Wet Hot American Summer” is riotously funny when the jokes work but extremely frustrating and annoying when they do not. The characters are supposed to be stereotypes of camp counselors in the movies of the ‘80s so the comedy must be judged on how and if they are used wisely in order to pull off a biting satire. Like reaching into a bag marbles, some are shiny and some are quite dull.

Beth is wonderful as a leader who is required to be everywhere at once. Despite her share of awkward quirks, I believed that she is functional enough to successfully manage the place. But the characters who have only sex on the brain are consistently hit-and-miss.

For instance, the dizzying dance between Coop and Katie goes absolutely nowhere. Every time they share the same frame, I wanted to see more of Andy’s amusing negligence whenever he is around other women. One of the more entertaining scenes involves a kid almost drowning in the lake because Andy is too busy shoving his tongue down a girl’s throat. Coop and Katie do have one funny scene, however, which involves trading clothes while sitting in a barn. The cheesiness of the whole thing is supposed to make us groan because movies from the past try to convince us that wearing someone’s piece of clothing is romantic. It is not romantic when the other person has lice or crabs.

I wished that McKinley (Michael Ian Black) and Ben (Bradley Cooper), gay lovers, had more scenes together. I felt like a lot of the jokes that could have stemmed from the homosexual relationship are held back out of political correctness. The picture does not need to be sensitive especially when it is supposed to be a satire. On the contrary, it must be merciless. I had a similar reaction with the way the attraction between the crafts teacher (Molly Shannon) and one of her students (Gideon Jacobs) is handled

To my surprise, the student-teacher attraction ends up being my favorite “relationship” in the film. It is so wrong yet so hilarious. It is both a shame and a missed opportunity that the screenplay chooses to shy away from polemical topics in order to make room for comedy that is easier to digest.

“Wet Hot American Summer,” directed by David Wain, needs to recognize its strengths and play upon them. Extraneous scenes that are downright stupid and unfunny like characters running from one room to another, screaming, and knocking down breakable objects on purpose need to be excised. In scenes like that, what exactly is being satirized—the writers running out of ideas?

Packed with impressive visuals and a witty script that consistently amuses, “The Lego Movie,” based on the screenplay and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, is an animated film that many claim is equal to this decade’s “Toy Story.” Though it is an entertaining work on its own, compared to John Lasseter’s film, Lord and Miller’s work functions on a lower level.

Lord Business (voiced by Will Ferrell) has a proclivity for categorization. Seeing different types of legos from different generations, themes, universes interacting just won’t do. So, he concocts a scheme: by using a device called the “Kragle” (short for Krazy Glue), not even the rebels collectively known as Master Builders—talented lego characters with the ability to assemble a pile of legos into weapons, mode of transport, or whatever they wish to create—will be able to redo or remove what he and his followers have constructed. However, it has been prophesied that eventually someone called the “Special” will rise and put an end to Lord Business’ evil plan. This chosen one turns out to be a very ordinary construction worker named Emmet (Chris Pratt).

The images exude a confident vivacity that is rare in movies—animated or otherwise. Because each lego character has a specific way of moving in one space, from one point to another, and expressing himself or herself, there is rarely a dull moment. We are given time to appreciate the details and we wonder how the filmmakers managed to make every leading and supporting character stand out. In other words, what is shown on screen is not just pretty pictures. It is refreshing when we feel like some thought and effort are actually put into the project instead of relying on vapid cuteness to appeal to the crowd. Yes, I’m looking at you, “Despicable Me 2.”

But the movie is not a completely immersive experience. Many of the jokes that are very funny when uttered or shown once or twice end up being repeated so much that they lose their impact. It tests the patience. More importantly, the romantic subplot between Emmet and Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) is forced and unnecessary. Why is it that so many animated movies these days feel like they must have some sort of romance? I don’t mind—as long as they work. But, really, we should ask ourselves: Do young children really care about the idea of romantic love being reciprocated? If the subplot were targeted for adults, it should have been written smarter, with a little more sweetness, maybe a bit more seduction. I did not care whether Wyldstyle and Emmet would end up together.

As a result, instead of building a steady upward momentum, the film is significantly less interesting when the two lovebirds interact. Why not simply focus on the mission? When I was a kid playing with LEGO bricks and toys, it was all about explosions, surprising twists, time running out, and rescuing captured comrades (or resurrecting them if they happened to have been killed in action). Even with my female action figures, they were not used as crushes or love interests for my male action figures. Why? Because saving the word—in this film, several universes—is more important than holding hands.

“The Lego Movie” really shines in the final quarter. The screenplay takes the characters’ universe and adds another dimension. I was surprised because at times I found myself quite moved with the parallels and differences drawn between one world and another. It was then I knew: the film is dedicated to children around the world of past, present, and future who use their toys as a conduit to their imagination.

When word spreads like wildfire that a movie is terrible, sometimes it is a challenge to keep an open mind and evaluate it as is–without taking word-of-mouth into consideration. This is why “Movie 43,” composed of shorts by various writers and directors, is somewhat of a surprise. I came in expecting I would hate it, but it turns out to be just another mediocre effort. While that is not a ringing endorsement, I enjoyed four–maybe five–out of about thirteen scenarios on screen, from Naomi Watts kissing her on-screen son on the lips to an animated gay cat who is caught by Elizabeth Banks masturbating to Josh Duhamel’s shirtless pictures.

The best segment is “Victory’s Glory,” written by Rocky Russo and Jeremy Sosenko, which focuses on group of black high school basketball players in the late ’50s who are worried about facing white players on the court. Coach Jackson (Terrence Howard) gives them a pep talk, assuring them that they will win simply because they are black. His argument relies on African-American stereotypes: tall, long-limbed, athletic. The comedy works because it goes all the way in poking fun of the racism that, for better or worse, has defined America as a nation. Propelled by Rusty Cundieff’s energetic direction and Howard’s performance, the penultimate short clip is a blast.

Another section that is worth watching is called “Beezel,” written and directed by James Gunn, named after an animated cat owned by Anson (Duhamel), a man who plans to begin a new chapter with his girlfriend (Banks). I enjoyed its creative leap of using an animated cat and not a trained animal who does tricks for the camera. By doing so, the feline–in under five minutes–is given color, personality, and clear motivation. Like “Victory’s Glory,” it starts with what should be a one-note joke but upends expectations by willing to experiment without veering completely off-course.

Many of the others do not fare as well. “The Catch,” directed by Peter Farrelly, does exactly the opposite. The joke involves a woman (Kate Winslet) going on a blind date with a handsome man (Hugh Jackman) who happens to have a set of testicles hanging off his neck. It should be funny. After all, many of us are so used to watching Winslet in serious roles. When she does comedy, it is difficult to read her and I like that she always has a level of danger in her eyes. However, the writers end up relying on one joke–everybody, except for Winslet’s character, failing to notice the man’s deformity–and hoping that the scrotum is disgusting enough to hide the sheer laziness of the material.

Most repulsive, boring, and pointless is director James Duffy’s “Super Hero Speed Dating.” A suggestion for the writer: if you’re going to put Batman (Jason Sudeikis), Robin (Justin Long), Superman (Bobby Cannavale), Wonder Woman (Leslie Bibb) in the same clip, make sure the script is written smart and worthy of the pop culture icons you are undertaking. Otherwise, like this segment, it ends up being like a cheaply produced dress up with no script, no effort, and no laughter. It is easily the most disposable of the bunch.

Lastly, “Movie 43” is not helped by the sequence of its segments. While the overarching storyline involving a screenwriter (Dennis Quaid) and a movie executive (Greg Kinnear) is as lifeless as a rock, the middle portion is almost unbearable, for the most part a landfill of uninspired ideas that will not pass as remotely funny even in an alternate universe, still there are a few standouts that do work.

Cops knocked on the Brennans’ door and claimed that Lara (Elizabeth Banks) was under arrest for the murder of her boss. Evidence was against her: a co-worker saw her leave the scene of the crime, the blood on her jacket matched the victim’s, and her fingerprints were on the murder weapon. But John (Russell Crowe), Lara’s husband, was convinced that she was innocent. In a span of three years, the community college professor did the best he could to get his wife out of prison. When the judge sentenced her to a life in prison, John turned to illicit means. His first move was to ask an ex-convict (Liam Neeson) how he managed to escape prison seven times. “The Next Three Days,” directed by Paul Haggis, was enjoyable for half of its running time. I liked it best when it focused on John’s increasing irrationality. There were times when I was convinced all the planning would ultimately amount to nothing because I figured by the time he was ready to execute his ambitious plans, he was already neck-deep in his obsession. When he made mistakes, the consequences were high. One particularly suspenseful scene was when he created a bump key, a key that could open most locks, and decided to test it on a prison elevator. It didn’t work and when he tried to force it out, it broke. An alarm went off a couple of seconds later. Worse, the room had a camera and it recorded every move. We were left to wonder how he was going to squiggle his way out of the complicated situation. However, the tension wasn’t consistent. If the tension isn’t consistent, the momentum doesn’t build. Worse, the movie ran for about thirty minutes too long. There were scenes between John and Nicole (Olivia Wilde), a single mother who was always at the park with her daughter, which suggested that there could be romance between the two. While Nicole was a key figure in John, Lara and their son’s (Ty Simpkins) eventual attempt to get out of the country, there wasn’t an effective moment between John and Nicole where we would be convinced that something was going to happen between them. Most of those scenes should have been edited out to make room for scenes from Detectives Quinn (Jason Beghe) and Collero’s (Aisha Hinds) point of view. Instead, we mostly saw the duo spying on John while in their car or just sitting at their desks. How were we supposed to take them seriously, to feel that they were a threat to John’s plans, if we didn’t know how their minds worked? Lastly, I wished that the picture kept some of its mysteries from us. In the end, it showed us whether or not Lara’s sentence was deserved. It didn’t matter. What mattered was we rooted for John’s plans to outsmart the system.

People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don’t have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.

I’m as guilty as anyone, because I helped to herald the digital era with “Jurassic Park.” But the danger is that it can be abused to the point where nothing is eye-popping any more. The difference between making “Jaws” thirty-one years ago and “War of the Worlds” is that today, anything I can imagine, I can realize on film. Then, when my mechanical shark was being repaired and I had to shoot something, I had to make the water scary. I relied on the audience’s imagination, aided by where I put the camera. Today, it would be a digital shark. It would cost a hell of a lot more, but never break down. As a result, I probably would have used it four times as much, which would have made the film four times less scary. “Jaws” is scary because of what you don’t see, not because of what you do. We need to bring the audience back into partnership with storytelling.

I’ve discovered I’ve got this preoccupation with ordinary people pursued by large forces.

Stanley Kubrick

If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.

I’ve always been interested in ESP and the paranormal. In addition to the scientific experiments which have been conducted suggesting that we are just short of conclusive proof of its existence, I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of opening a book at the exact page we’re looking for, or thinking of a friend a moment before they ring on the telephone. But “The Shining” didn’t originate from any particular desire to do a film about this. I thought it was one of the most ingenious and exciting stories of the genre I had read. It seemed to strike an extraordinary balance between the psychological and the supernatural in such a way as to lead you to think that the supernatural would eventually be explained by the psychological: “Jack must be imagining these things because he’s crazy.” This allowed you to suspend your doubt of the supernatural until you were so thoroughly into the story that you could accept it almost without noticing. The novel is by no means a serious literary work, but the plot is for the most part extremely well worked out, and for a film that is often all that really matters.

I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don’t want.

Werner Herzog

What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.

It is not only my dreams, my belief is that all these dreams are yours as well. The only distinction between me and you is that I can articulate them. And that is what poetry or painting or literature or filmmaking is all about… and it is my duty because this might be the inner chronicle of what we are. We have to articulate ourselves, otherwise we would be cows in the field.

Your film is like your children. You might want a child with certain qualities, but you are never going to get the exact specification right. The film has a privilege to live its own life and develop its own character. To suppress this is dangerous. It is an approach that works the other way too: sometimes the footage has amazing qualities that you did not expect.

Agnès Varda

I’m not interested in seeing a film just made by a woman—not unless she is looking for new images.

I’m interested in people who are not exactly the middle way, or who are trying something else because they cannot prevent themselves from being different, or they wish to be different, or they are different because society pushed them away.

In my films I always wanted to make people see deeply. I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.

Alfred Hitchcock

Four people are sitting around a table talking about baseball or whatever you like. Five minutes of it. Very dull. Suddenly, a bomb goes off. Blows the people to smithereens. What does the audience have? Ten seconds of shock. Now, take the same scene and tell the audience there is a bomb under that table and will go off in five minutes. The whole emotion of the audience is totally different because you’ve given them that information. In five minutes time that bomb will go off. Now the conversation about baseball becomes very vital. Because they’re saying to you, “Don’t be ridiculous. Stop talking about baseball. There’s a bomb under there.” You’ve got the audience working.

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.

是枝 裕和 | Hirokazu Kore-eda

Yes, a family is interesting. You can get a lot of drama in the conflicts there. It’s like the sea. It seems calm, but inside there is conflict.

In the neighborhood around Waseda, there were all these movie theaters, so every morning I left the house and watched movies instead of going to class. The experience of encountering films then is one of my greatest memories. Before that I’d never paid any attention to directors, but there I was taking a crash course in Ozu, Kurosawa, Naruse, Truffaut, Renoir, Fellini. Because I’ve always been naturally a more introspective person, I was more interested in becoming a screenwriter than a director.

The Japanese don’t have a specific religion, but a spirituality. A cap, shoes, and a table have a spirituality. When you eat an apple, you don’t say you eat it: you say, “I am receiving it.” Kind of like you are thanking the food.

Ken Loach

Why do they say I hate my country? And what does that even mean? Am I supposed to hate my town, am I supposed to hate all English people, or my government? And if I do hate my government, does that mean I hate my country? It’s a democratic duty to criticize the government.

A movie isn’t a political movement, a party, or even an article. It’s just a film. At best it can add its voice to public outrage.

Ava DuVernay

Black people loving and losing is something we don’t see enough of. We’re always in these heightened situations like something big is happening, something funny or something violent. And you know what? Sometimes we die of breast cancer or a broken heart. Things happen that are just not being explored cinematically. It’s time we reinvigorated that type of film.

As a Black woman filmmaker I feel that’s my job: visibility. And my preference within that job is Black subjectivity. Meaning I’m interested in the lives of Black folk as the subject. Not the predicate, not the tangent. [These stories] deserve to be told. Not as sociology, not as spectacle, not as a singular event that happens every so often, but regularly and purposefully as truth and as art on an ongoing basis, as do the stories of all the women you love.

If you walk into a room, and there is no one that’s not like you there, whether it’s a woman or a person of color, anyone that’s different from you, you should be able to say, “This is a problem.” We need allies in that room to say [this] video, this room, this company, these ideas, this film, this whatever, this is not right—this is not good enough.

Luca Guadagnino

I’m one of those directors who read reviews, even if they’re bad, because I started as a film critic as a cinema student. I indulge in the art of criticism in general.

Making movies is about control. You need to control your narcissism in the first place, and you need to be disciplined enough to understand the reason for the film. You need to follow the agenda of the film, not a personal agenda or that of the studio. Or, worst of all, of the actors.

I was two years younger than Elio is in the book [“Call Me by Your Name”]. But I remember my childhood and adolescence distinctively, and how I was already starting to be a director, because I was sitting at the far end of a room studying people dancing at parties. I was reading books and imagining stories in my own mind and I was starting to become a young man aware of his own sexuality, although, unlike Elio, I did dare to speak [up about it].

In 1993, my first documentary was about the civil war in Algeria. That was in French and in Arabic. Another short film I did was silent. What I’m trying to say is that, yes, I’m Italian, and yes, I make films with Italian money, but personally, I’ve always been invested in the broader world of filmmaking.

Pedro Almodóvar

Yes, women are stronger than us. They face more directly the problems that confront them, and for that reason they are much more spectacular to talk about. I don’t know why I am more interested in women, because I don’t go to any psychiatrists, and I don’t want to know why.

I think decor says a lot about someone’s social position, their taste, their sensibility, their work, and also about the aesthetic way I have chosen to tell their story.

My school and the cinema were only a few buildings apart on the same street. The bad education I received at school was rectified when I went to the cinema. My religion became the cinema. Of course one could create one’s own belief system, and anything that helps or supports you in life can be seen as covering the function of religion. In that sense you could consider cinema my religion, because it is one of my major stimuli that I have for living. Cinema has that aspect of devotion to saints and idolatry as well. In that sense it is entirely religious.

Terrence Malick

Experience it like a walk in the countryside. You’ll probably be bored or have other things in mind, but perhaps you will be struck, suddenly, by a feeling, by an act, by a unique portrait of nature.

David Fincher

My idea of professionalism is probably a lot of people’s idea of obsessive.

People will say, “There are a million ways to shoot a scene,” but I don’t think so. I think there are two, maybe. And the other one is wrong.

Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine. Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything’s okay. I don’t make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything’s not okay.

Louis Malle

You must find the note, the correct key, for your story. If you find it, everything will work. If you do not, everything will stick out like elbows.

I think predictability has become the rule and I’m completely the opposite–I like spectators to be disturbed.

Martin Scorsese

When I did “The Age of Innocence,” the critics said, “Is it wrong to expect a little more heat from Scorsese?” I thought “The Age of Innocence” was pretty hot. So I said, “Alright, I’ll do ‘Casino,'” and they said, “Well, gee, it’s the same as ‘Goodfellas.'” You can’t win. Yes, “Casino” has the style of “GoodFellas,” but it has more to do with America–and even Hollywood: the idea of never being satisfied.

“L’avventura” gave me one of the most profound shocks I’ve ever had at the movies, greater even than “Breathless” or “Hiroshima, mon amour.” Or “La dolce vita”. At the time there were two camps, the people who liked the Fellini film and the ones who liked “L’avventura.” I knew I was firmly on Antonioni’s side of the line, but if you’d asked me at the time, I’m not sure I would have been able to explain why. I loved Fellini’s pictures and I admired “La dolce vita,” but I was challenged by “L’avventura.” Fellini’s film moved me and entertained me, but Antonioni’s film changed my perception of cinema, and the world around me, and made both seem limitless. I was mesmerized by “L’avventura” and by Antonioni’s subsequent films, and it was the fact that they were unresolved in any conventional sense that kept drawing me back. They posed mysteries–or, rather, the mystery of who we are, what we are, to each other, to ourselves, to time. You could say that Antonioni was looking directly at the mysteries of the soul.

The cinema began with a passionate, physical relationship between celluloid and the artists and craftsmen and technicians who handled it, manipulated it, and came to know it the way a lover comes to know every inch of the body of the beloved. No matter where the cinema goes, we cannot afford to lose sight of its beginnings.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

In “L’enfant,” we have a main character, Bruno, a man who cannot be a father, who is never able to be a father, and it feels like at the end of the movie he at last became a father. Well, I’m not sure things will be OK afterwards. But it seems like when they’re in the prison, where people can speak with their families, I think he says, “How’s Jimmy, how is he doing?” Well, he never said the name of the kid before. It means that he has changed. Because of the kid that he has saved from the water, Steve, he became someone else. It takes time. So we felt that it was the right moment to end the movie. Our movies are like portraits.

We haven’t found any place or room for music in our movies. Maybe because we are not able to find the right music, I don’t know. And when we’re shooting, I think that’s where things happen actually. When we’re building our plans, et cetera, the rhythm of that construction is partly based on the sounds, not only the dialogues, but touching the objects. And rhythm is based on the sounds that we can hear on the set, the noise of the bodies moving, the breathing of the characters, that’s our music. We just don’t see the need for music. When we’re shooting we just don’t think about it.

I think one of the big wishes of the human kind is to transform things, to work on things to construct, to destroy, to sometimes construct again. And not only to look at the world, let’s say, passively. I think that’s the aim of humankind, being a man, a woman, is to change things. And cinema is about showing things that are changing.

Spike Lee

I think it is very important that films make people look at what they’ve forgotten.

I’m just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets.

I believe in destiny. But I also believe that you can’t just sit back and let destiny happen. A lot of times, an opportunity might fall into your lap, but you have to be ready for that opportunity. You can’t sit there waiting on it. A lot of times you are going to have to get out there and make it happen.

宮崎 駿 | Hayao Miyazaki

I would like to make a film to tell children, “It’s good to be alive.”

I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live–if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.

Personally, I was never more passionate about manga than when preparing for my college entrance exams. It’s a period of life when young people appear to have a great deal of freedom, but are in many ways actually oppressed. Just when they find themselves powerfully attracted to members of opposite sex, they have to really crack the books. To escape from this depressing situation, they often find themselves wishing they could live in a world of their own–a world they can say is truly theirs, a world unknown even to their parents. To young people, anime is something they incorporate into this private world. I often refer to this feeling as one yearning for a lost world. It’s a sense that although you may currently be living in a world of constraints, if you were free from those constraints, you would be able to do all sorts of things. And it’s that feeling, I believe, that makes mid-teens so passionate about anime.

Wes Craven

You don’t enter the theater and pay your money to be afraid. You enter the theater and pay your money to have the fears that are already in you… dealt with and put into a narrative.

What you want to do is you want to put your audience off-balance. You have to be aware of what the audience’s expectations are, and then you have to pervert them, basically, and hit them upside the head from a direction they weren’t looking.

I think the experience of going to a theater and seeing a movie with a lot of people is still part of the transformational power of film, and it’s equivalent to the old shaman telling a story by the campfire to a bunch of people. That is a remarkable thing… If you scream and everyone else in the audience screams, you realize that your fears are not just within yourself, they’re in other people as well, and that’s strangely releasing.

Quentin Tarantino

If you’re a film fan, collecting video is sort of like marijuana. Laser discs, they’re definitely cocaine. Film prints are heroin, all right? You’re shooting smack when you start collecting film prints. So, I kinda got into it in a big way, and I’ve got a pretty nice collection I’m real proud of.

The exploitation films were made in such an artless way with these big wide shots of Sunset Boulevard or of Arcadia or downtown L.A. or wherever. In mainstream films, especially in the 1980s, the Los Angeles you saw wasn’t the real one; it was a character with this backlot sort of atmosphere. They tried to luxuriate it. In exploitation films, you see what the place really looked like, you see the bars and mom-and-pop restaurants.

I’ve had people write that I’ve seen too many movies. In what other art form would being an expert be considered a negative? If I were a poet, would I be criticized for knowing too much about Sappho? Or Aristotle?

Richard Linklater

The most unique property of cinema is how it lets you mold time, whether it’s over a long or a very brief period.

The essence of you probably doesn’t change and that’s really one of the concerns of [“Before Midnight”]. Have Celine and Jessie changed? They are still themselves; they seem very connected to the same person they were at 23 and yet life has this way of attaching things to them, whether it’s children or just life experience and responsibility. It’s a very different life at 23 where you could just get off a train with no one waiting on you back home, no schedule. When we meet them the second time they are very scheduled. He has a plane to catch, he is at work, and she is grounded in the city she lives in. So you see the reality closing in even though it’s still this romantic encounter. By the time of the third film they are in the real world, we see their social interactions and they are much more grounded.

I’ve always been most interested in the politics of everyday life: your relation to whatever you’re doing, or what your ambitions are, where you live, where you find yourself in the social hierarchy.

James Wan

We think craft is important, and the irony has always been that horror may be disregarded by critics, but often they are the best-made movies you’re going to find in terms of craft. You can’t scare people if they see the seams.

When you’re watching an action movie, you experience an action movie more outside of the aquarium, you’re out of the aquarium looking in at all the swimming fish that are in there. Whereas horror films and thrillers are designed to put the audience into that box, into that aquarium.

Christopher Nolan

You’re never going to learn something as profoundly as when it’s purely out of curiosity.

The screen is the same size for every story. A shot of a teacup is the same size as an army coming over the hill. It’s all storytelling.

Films are subjective—what you like, what you don’t like. But the thing for me that is absolutely unifying is the idea that every time I go to the cinema and pay my money and sit down and watch a film go up on screen, I want to feel that the people who made that film think it’s the best movie in the world, that they poured everything into it and they really love it. Whether or not I agree with what they’ve done, I want that effort there—I want that sincerity. And when you don’t feel it, that’s the only time I feel like I’m wasting my time at the movies.

Todd Solondz

People have trouble understanding where I stand in relation to my characters, and very often this gets reduced to me making vicious fun of them.

[My film “Happiness” is] not for everyone and it’s not designed for everyone and I don’t think I’ll ever write anything that’s designed to appeal to everyone. If you want sympathetic characters, it’s easy enough to do: you just give someone cancer and, of course, we’ll all feel horribly sad and sorry. You make anyone a victim and people feel that way. But that’s not of interest to me as a filmmaker or as a writer. I may be accused of a certain kind of misanthropy but I think I could argue the opposite. I think that it’s only by acknowledging the flaws, the foibles, the failings and so forth of who we are that we can in fact fully embrace the all of who we are. People say I’m cruel or that the film’s cruel, but I think rather it exposes the cruelty and I think that certainly the capacity for cruelty is the most difficult, the most painful thing for any of us to acknowledge. That we are at all capable. And yet I think that it exists as much as the capacity for kindness and it’s only the best of us that are able to suppress, sublimate, re-channel and so forth these baser instincts, but I see them to some degree at play as a regular part of life in very subtle ways and not so subtle ways. I don’t think that after the seventh grade that these impulses evaporate. So, from my perspective, I’m trying to be honest with what I see and what I’ve experienced and what I believe is true to our nature.

Jeff Nichols

I feel like when you write, you have to have a personal core to a story if you have any hope of it translating to an audience. There are certain emotions you have throughout your life that are palpable, you can feel them; they hurt. Every film I’ve made, I can point to one of those emotions, and for [“Mud”] it was going to be heartbreak. I can create all these plot lines, but they have to service that… By the time you get to the end of [the film], that thematic idea has just seeped into the story. You haven’t attacked it head on; you’ve been able to let your audience absorb it into their bloodstream.

I remember I was in junior high school and I was going to write a short story about mobsters, or New York mobsters. I think I had just seen a Scorsese film. And I told my dad that. And he was like, “You haven’t ever been to New York.” And I said, “Nah, but that’s where mobsters live.” And he basically said, “Why don’t you write something about Arkansas?” And a window in my mind opened. I realized all of a sudden that I had access to something that was interesting, that the rest of the world couldn’t write about, because I was the one there.

Gaspar Noé

My characters are never heroic. They are mostly lost and trying to find the right door to open and they end up opening the wrong doors.

You wake up because you killed someone and you’re afraid of going to jail. And the moment you wake up you feel safe and it’s over and you can meet that person in the street and you’re not going to jail. The good thing about dreams is that they erase some kind of desire, because after your dreams you feel you’ve done it, and you’re relieved.

In a way, movies don’t present how sweet or normal sex can be. There were many doors open in the ’70s during the sexual revolution by many directors who were doing movies containing sex scenes that were not sex movies, as you may call them. There’s something very old fashioned in the world we live in. You can have images of cruel or mechanical sex available anywhere to young kids, but they are disconnected from real life. The presentation of love in real life is missing from the movie theaters. It’s totally a chronic nuisance. How many people get killed in movies now? Even in a general audience movie like “The Passion of the Christ”, it’s all about torture. Why can that be seen by kids, but just two grown up persons kissing and enjoying their bodies, that’s a problem?

Paul Thomas Anderson

You have to be a brat in order to carve out your parameters, and you have to be a monster to anyone who gets in your way. But sometimes it’s difficult to know when that’s necessary and when you’re just being a baby, throwing your rattle from the cage.

My filmmaking education consisted of finding out what filmmakers I liked were watching, then seeing those films. I learned the technical stuff from books and magazines, and with the new technology you can watch entire movies accompanied by audio commentary from the director. You can learn more from John Sturges’ audio track on the “Bad Day at Black Rock” laserdisc than you can in 20 years of film school.

[In film school] there was an assignment to write, you write a page that has no dialogue in it… you show a character trait through action, with no dialogue. I had read this great script by David Mamet, which was “Hoffa”… and there was a great scene where Danny DeVito is driving along… and it shows what he’s going through by the method he uses to keep himself awake while driving, which is he lights a cigarette… and he lets it burn down to his fingers to keep him awake. And it’s just so simple, and perfect, and lovely, and it’s Mr. Pulitzer Prize himself, David Mamet. So I took that page, and I handed it in. And it got a C+… There’s a wonderful thing that if you drop out quick enough, you get your tuition back.

Lars Von Trier

Political correctness kills discussion.

If you want to provoke, you should provoke someone who is stronger than you, otherwise you are misusing your power.

You can’t do much in this world without hurting someone else. Every time you take a breath it’s to the disadvantage of someone or something. And then you have to decide how and in which way you will hurt others. And I find it quite agreeable trying not to hurt anyone, but I have made this decision about the fish. It’s a pity about them, but also, if I pull up a fish, then it makes space for another fish who will be so happy to get more space. And he will become a very happy little fish. You can rationalize it in a number of different ways—maybe the fish I pull up is depressed and wants to end his life, but he hasn’t really been able to do it. It’s not easy if you’re a fish. I wouldn’t know what a big salmon who’s really tired of it all would do.